[UA] Re: [UA][OT] UA unintenionally sexist? (LONG!)

[Patrick O'Duffy]

Timothy Ferguson wrote:

> Frankly, though, as an Australian, you might find more interest in either
> Steve Biddulph's "Manhood" or the American Farrell's "The Myth of Male
> Power".  Faludi's book is definately about -Americans-.  Farrell's is a bit
> wider, and Biddulph is about Australians.  Read the second edition if you
> want minimal mythopoetical interpretation.

Brisbane City library has Manhood; I'll have a look, after I finish reading all
these books on organized crime.

> > Maybe it's a cultural thing.  I certainly don't feel powerless; I'm a
> white male
> > in a society created by white males for the empowerment of white males.
> If I
> > was richer (I live below the poverty line), I'd be King of the world.
>
> I take it you don't have children, then?

Christ, no; I can't stand children.  I had a vasectomy when I was 25 just to
avoid having any by accident.

>  This is one of the main theses in
> men's movement books, that the Father is fading fromthe public conciousness
> as an admirable role.  It's not a matter of powerlessness in Australia
> because we have never been the global hegemonic power.

Hmmm.  I remember hearing stuff about this occasionally; men complaining losing
access to their kids after divorce.  The main reason I blew that off is, I
think, that my father easily got custody of all three kids in my family when my
parents got divorced.  Hard for me to understand what the fuss is about.

>  In Australia there's
> more of a defensiveness about the idea that the patriarchy aids all men,
> when for some of us, it seems far more likely that the patriarchy is
> actually the Old School Tie network, favouring those who go to one of 10
> specific high schools and 8 specific universities.

Yeah, I certainly see that.  I look at friends of mine who've been to Grammar
school, who have inheritances, who have all these connections, and it's hard not
to feel a little bitter.  But I usually chalk that up to wealth rather than
patriarchy.

> The other big thread in the Australian form of the movement is that boys are
> continuing to slide in schools.  Men have been concerned with the stats on
> this for over a decade in Oz, but we were ignored until women said "I am a
> feminist and I am going to fight for my son."

I'll have to take your word that this problem exists; it's just not something I
know anything about.

> The great leaders in the Boys
> Education debate are women, because men are not taken seriously when they
> claim weaknesses, like being raped, being depressed, or feeling that their
> gender as a group needs help.

I've done counselling work for the QLD AIDS Council in that past.  I think
_some_ elements of society take such things seriously - but you're right,
perhaps, in saying that society as a whole blows them off.

--
Patrick O'Duffy, Brisbane, Australia

Some days it's like some bastard nailed a ticket for the bus tour
down to fucking Hell to the front of my brain.

 - Spider Jerusalem, TRANSMETROPOLITAN #26



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